Here’s my beautiful unemployed-for-too-long-have-no-money-dont-care-about-looks lab :)

picture of a raspberrypi, switch, HP elite desk, KVM and mess of cables on a desk

Hey it’s more than good enough to run all this ¯_(ツ)_/¯

screenshot showing list of hosted apps and resources usage of servers

  • iamthetot@piefed.caEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    Question… I often see rack mounted servers with those small Ethernet patch cables running between two adjacent devices, like you have there. I’ve always assumed one of the devices is a switch, but it’s never made sense to me why there’s so many connections between those two.

    What are those devices, and why so many connections between them? Like, as far as I can tell, in one instance you have a cable running from the top device to a small switch resting on top, which then runs from the switch to the lower device… Despite all of the other Ethernet running directly from the top to the bottom. What is going on here??

    • eodur@piefed.socialEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, one is a switch. The patch panel basically is just for organization. All the equipment in the rack and all the house runs all plug into the back of the patch panel and then the short cables allow you to more easily plug them into the switch. Its definitely not necessary, but it helps maintain the space.

      And that one random device on top is the router. Maybe one day I’ll upgrade to a better one, but this one handles everything great. Its just too small to be worth mounting. Kinda like the Pi sitting on the UPS.